Washington has become a place where being a "squish" — a politician who doesn't support the party's extreme positions — can end a career. That drives partisanship to destructive levels, blocks compromise and lets problems fester. Some promising ideas for breaking the gridlock:

1) Curb gerrymandering. Congress is overrun with hyperpartisans because the game is tilted. Legislatures in too many states have spent decades gerrymandering districts that strongly favor one party or the other. That means most incumbents fear the other party less than a challenge from a competitor in their own party.

The result: Deep red and deep blue House districts produce highly partisan politicians who rarely have to cater to independents or members of the other party to get elected, and have no incentive to do that once they get to Washington.

California used to be Exhibit A for such safely partisan House seats — until citizens got fed up with letting the politicians choose their own voters. District drawing was turned over to a bipartisan commission. The first elections in the new districts last year produced dramatic change. After decades that saw few incumbents lose, 14 districts — more than a quarter of the state's 53 congressional seats — elected new members.

California is the most recent of five states (the others are Alaska, Arizona, Idaho and Washington) that use independent commissions to insulate the redistricting process from partisan politics. If more states opted for this approach, more House members would come from politically diverse districts and reposition themselves in the political center.

2) Drop conventions. One thing many politicians fear most these days is failing their party's loyalty test and getting "primaried" by an even more partisan challenger. But at least in a primary, there's a chance to survive. Tens of thousands of people vote, and in some states, independents and members of the opposite party help choose candidates, which can force politicians toward the center.

Leaving candidate selection to a convention or caucus of activists can have the opposite effect.

In 2010 in Utah, a party convention replaced conservative incumbent Sen. Robert Bennett with Tea Party favorite Mike Lee, who went on to become a ringleader of last month's federal government shutdown.

This year in Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli, the state's hard-right attorney general, persuaded his party to dump a planned primary in favor of a convention. Party activists gave Cuccinelli an advantage over rival Bill Bolling, the state's more moderate GOP lieutenant governor. Bolling ceded the nomination to Cuccinelli, who was defeated this month by a weak Democratic candidate.

3) Revamp primaries. So-called closed primaries — where only party members can vote — can produce nominees just as extreme as conventions. A better way is to open primary elections to independents or even to all voters, who at least in theory can pick more moderate nominees.

An even more promising way of picking candidates is a non-partisan or "jungle" primary that leads to a runoff between the top two candidates, no matter which party they belong to. Except in districts that tilt overwhelmingly toward a single party, that can force candidates to look for support from independents or members of the other party.

In its purest form, this sort of primary happens now only in California and Washington state, where voters demanded it in ballot initiatives. Conservative districts still elect Republicans and liberal districts Democrats, but the process can affect how members behave in office.

For example, although most House Republicans voted against reopening the government in October, California's Republicans split 8-7 for the measure, and all four of Washington's Republicans voted for it.

4) Elect more women. In the darkest days of the government shutdown, it was female senators who reached across the aisle to begin looking for a bipartisan way out. The eventual deal that reopened the government didn't precisely track what GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and five female colleagues from both parties proposed, but the women got credit for breaking the ice when it looked like no one was talking.

The episode reaffirmed what academics say studies have proved: Women are better than men at making deals and compromises. While men tend to be competitive loners, women are prone to collaborate, and they get more done.

This doesn't mean that women can't be just as hyperpartisan as men. But it does suggest that if compromise, common ground and actual results are important, politics could use more estrogen and less testosterone.

This year, the price of putting political purity over pragmatism became clear when Tea Partyers such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, led Republican leaders into the government shutdown. The futility of the tactic, and the economic harm it caused, infuriated the GOP's traditional business backers, who vowed to stop remaining neutral in Republican primaries.

Two House races this month have shown that extreme or unqualified candidates are beatable if the establishment fights back.

In the runoff for the GOP nomination in a House race in Alabama on Nov. 5, establishment candidate Bradley Byrne used financial support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and major corporations to help him decisively beat Tea Party Republican Dean Young, who compared himself to Cruz, suggested President Obama had been born in Kenya and cheered on the shutdown.

In a House race last weekend in Louisiana, GOP businessman Vance McAllister defied Tea Party attacks by backing Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid, which would cover thousands of poor citizens in his low-income district. That pragmatism helped him trounce GOP state senator Neil Riser.

Even bigger tests will come next year, when several Senate Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, face challenges from the right flank.

Democrats faced the same sort of party-defining battle in the 1990s, when Bill Clinton defied his party's left wing by backing deficit reduction, welfare reform and other moderate positions that angered liberals. That set Democrats on a course that helped them capture the White House in four of the next six elections. Now it's the Republicans who'll have to move back toward the center if they hope to recapture control of the Senate or win national elections.

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